


Ripples in My Eyes

by scarce_raindrops (RR_Lanius)



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-22 13:03:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4836401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RR_Lanius/pseuds/scarce_raindrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. In which a young Sakura was rescued from the verge of death by an extraterrestrial organism who chose her as a vessel to carry out his clan's agenda, granting her formidable powers in the process. (Features a Rinnegan-wielding Sakura)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He probably should be crying right now.

Yeah, crying sounded like the logical action at this time.

The pink haired girl said that one should cry whenever he feels sadness or pain, and as of this moment, he was definitely feeling both sadness and pain. To an extreme amount even.

His face hurts as a certain bastard wouldn't stop yanking on it.

His heart hurts as the same jerk yanking on his face was forcing him out of the vessel that he had grown quite fond of over the years.

However, even though he suspected that he was supposed to bawl his eyes out and act all sentimental, he couldn't help but laugh.

To think that he had changed so much from the time when he first arrived at this planet...

A groan found its way out of his lips as the ghostly hand jerked himself towards the horned fiend standing on the opposite side.

He wanted to scream for the spectral entity cloaked in white to stop hurting him, to stop pulling him towards its direction. However, he knew that his pleas wouldn't help him at all. The situation was hopeless, and he was helpless.

Never once did he expect himself to be subjected to such humiliation. Never once did he ever expect that there would come a day where he would be literally dragged to his own demise, all the while unable to put up any productive resistance.

Another painful tug from the horned spirit's hands separated the majority of his upper body from the earthly body that he had sought refuge in. With just one more tug, he would no doubt be ripped out of his fleshly shelter and be sent on a trip straight towards the wretched summoning's stomach.

The wrath of a shinigami had truly exceeded all of his expectations.

Turning his face around to the best of his capabilities whilst under the iron-tight grip of the white-haired shinigami, the distressed being stole a glance at the reason that he ended up in this quagmire of a situation in the first place.

There was a moment of silence as he made eye contact with the pink-haired kunoichi whose abdomen his upper body was sprouting from. Emerald met purple, as the two individuals shared a look of understanding. She was aware of the reason behind his sacrifice and why it needed to be done, and he was willing to make the sacrifice.

It was easy for one to regret their decisions and forget their motives when confronted by great adversity, and he, too, fell victim to the curse. Though when he caught sight of the girl's bright eyes, the memories that fear had sealed away from him came bursting out, and he concluded that it was all going to be worth it in the end.

Extending his hands towards the frightened kunoichi's, the creature rested his fingers on the pair of eyes that he was so enthralled by. With a smile, he departed, separated from the kunoichi's body and sent right into the stomach of the shinigami.

The Dead Demon Consuming Seal was complete.

A collection of liquids swamped around the edges of the kunoichi's eyes, cascading down her bruise-littered cheeks as she howled. Crying out of anger and despair.

Sometimes he wondered if he was any help to her at all...

* * *

 

He would be the first to admit that befriending humans was never his intention nor was it his creators' intentions when they birthed him out of a series of formulas and rituals. Rather it was his mission to shoulder the hatred of his clansmen and cast judgment and comeuppance onto the sinners that went against Lord Hagoromo's teachings and weaponized chakra against the legendary sage's wishes.

Since the moment when his world became more than just a blanket of never-fading darkness, he had always been an individual without a physical state. He was just a translucent creation, armed with an imperfect set of the sage's dojutsu that was perpetually reflected in his eyes.

Normally one would be overjoyed by the knowledge that they shared the same eyes with someone of stature as legendary as Otsutsuki Hagoromo, and he would too if his eyes were more than just a pair of mutated eyeballs that served no other purpose other than decorative purposes due to his lack of chakra. There was no point in creating someone like him.

A failed experiment and the fruitless byproduct of his clansmen's ambitions to create a being to match the prowess of the infamous Sage of the Sixth Paths, his existence was only allowed to be prolonged due to his creators' desire to justify the amount of resources and man hours they had invested in their project.

...They eventually found something for him. Quite fortunate for the people that made him too, or else they would had been given quite the brutal death for producing something as useless as him. But, it wasn't that fortunate for him.

It was two years after his creation that he was sent off to destroy the humanity that resides in the blue planet as the scientists had found a way to get around the limitations that his lack of tangible body imposed on his original mission.

"Leeching," was what they called it—an ability gifted to him after hours of arduous scripting of arcane language.

They wanted him to discreetly make his way into the earthling's planet, insert his presence into an individual of his choosing, before hostilely taking over his victim's body from within, and overriding his host's original personality with his own. The person he chose would serve as his avatar—a physical body he could channel his dojutsu towards. Like a parasite, he would leech off his host's energy and use it to perform the vengeful desires of his fellow clansmen.

"Pick a jinchuriki," they told him, "A jinchuriki should have plenty of chakra to keep the Rinnegan active."

He only nodded in response to their advice.

* * *

 

The day of his departure, everyone threw him a going-away party.

They tried to make the task he was about to undertake sound all glorious. Claiming that he would be spearheading their war against the earthlings and that they would send reinforcements to join him in the war in due time.

It was obvious that his comrades were lying through their teeth.

He was sent there to measure humanity's strength and that was all there was to it. If it turned out that the humans on earth were stronger than what they had estimated, there would be no reinforcements and he would be left high and dry to endure the wrath of the provoked humans all by his lonesome—a fitting end for a failure like him.

When the time for him to leave arrived, he was sent rocketing away from his home planet by a specialized spherical-shaped spacecraft and traveled from one star system to another. The journey itself was long and torturous, each minute felt like a year and with each passing day, it felt like a part of sanity faded away as well.

* * *

 

He didn't know how much time passed before his spacecraft had landed in the middle of a woodland, but when it did, he was too relieved that he no longer had to spend his days in incensing isolation to bother to deal with the flaming wreckage around him. It wasn't like the flames could harm him as he had no physical form for the flames to burn, and if the flames affected the organisms living on the planet that he landed on, he doubted that his comrades would have minded. They wanted destruction on this planet, and setting blaze to the surrounding vegetation would just be the first step.

As he floated through the forest, the artificial life form wandered away from the site of flaming trees and roasting grass as he surveyed his surroundings. There were multiple life organisms that he couldn't recognize—organisms that he doubted existed in his own planets. Creatures with wings and quadruped creatures with elaborately designed sticks sticking out of their heads were just some of the creatures that were foreign to him.

The organism continued to advance in the foreign environment, his body hovering just centimeters away from the reach of the blades of grass laid below him. The more that he saw of this mysterious world, the more he couldn't resist but be amazed by how much safer the woodland looked compared to the woodlands of his home planet, and wondered if such a beautiful planet could really be infested by the dastardly sinners that his people often spoke ill of.

It was not long before his feeling of serenity was disrupted. In fact, it was disrupted the moment when he wandered his way out of the forest and stumbled in the midst of what appeared to be a human settlement. A settlement way too undeveloped compared to the place where he hailed from.

There was a scream.

Naturally, he became serious and quickly made his way to the location where the cry of distress had erupted from, and when he did, he wasn't impressed with what he saw.

A frightened child, a standing male, a male lying on his back, and the moon and stars that witnessed everything. Unlike him, who arrived at the scene only after the sinful deed was performed.

One of the standing man's arms was still outstretched, the palms still facing outwards— a sign that whatever the standing man did to the man lying on the ground, he did it not too long ago.

An expression of terror had taken the standing male's face while death had collected the supine man's soul.

For a moment there, he thought that the still-living male had noticed his presence and immediately hid behind a nearby lamppost. Realizing only moments later that his effort to hide was completely pointless—humans in this world wouldn't be able to see him unless he wanted them to.

He probably should have taken over the victorious man's body at that time, but he chose not to. Instead, he walked away. The living man's life was probably going to get harder and filled with troublesome drama as time went on—both of which he never desired.

* * *

 

When the sky brightened again, he continued his search for a potential vessel.

It was then that he stumbled across the girl.

The girl with the pretty eyes.

Her eyes weren't brimming with the happiness and optimism that he had grown accustomed to over the years during his first encounter with her, instead it was overridden with sadness and swamped by salty water, but even then, he still found it pretty. He was mesmerized by them and developed an attraction so perverse that it even startled him.

He wanted to look into it forever.

And in spite what her tormentors were saying, he found her forehead a perfect complement to her eyes.

* * *

 

Her pretty eyes got brighter over time, and he was pretty sure that the blonde girl that had started to hang around her had something to do with it.

That blonde girl had pretty eyes as well. They reminded him of a cloudless morning sky.

However, they weren't as pretty as the green eyes the pink-haired girl with the big forehead had—that girl's eyes would always be the prettiest.

He liked the blonde girl. Not just because they shared an appreciation to the pink-haired girl's forehead but also because of her willingness to keep the girl with pretty eyes company, and for that, he was grateful.

Subconsciously he had appointed himself to be their protector and devoted several hours of his daily life to look over the duo as they experienced the vicissitude of life. The mission that his clansmen had bestowed upon him all but forgotten.

He was a creepy individual, and he was never ashamed of that.

* * *

 

The girl with pretty eyes always met up with her friends in a playground near her home. Which was why he was surprised when one day, she didn't show up.

Her friends seemed surprised to why she wasn't at the playground either, as indicated by their conversation.

At first he thought that she just got busy, and would return to play with her friends like usual once her schedule cleared up.

Two weeks had passed after that, and the girl was still nowhere to be seen.

On the fifteenth night since the girl's absence, he visited her house. Having taken advantage of his lack of physical state to phase through the walls of her house without any hindrance, he proceeded to inspect the interiors of the residence for signs of the green eyes that he had so adored.

He saw no pretty eyes that night, nor did he see any signs of life inside that building. From the dust filled furniture and the number of spider webs existing between the corners of each wall, it was hard to believe that someone actually lived there.

The spectral entity returned to wandering around the streets soon after, though his attempt to enjoy the night scenery was greatly hindered by the question of the owner of the pretty pair of eyes' whereabouts.

* * *

 

It was only when he heard two individuals dressed in white mentioning the girl with pretty eyes' name did he get the idea to visit the village hospital. According to the white-attired people, the bearer of the pretty eyes was sick, and as her self-appointed guardian, it was only reasonable for him to check on her. But when he finally located the room that the pretty eyes were located in, he couldn't help but feel that he would have been better off if he hadn't visited at all.

The owner of the eyes was in bad shape. Her body hooked to dozens of various machinery, as paleness started to find its way up her face—a sign that death was near.

"She's not going to make it." He heard a person with a clipboard say to a crestfallen couple. To which the female of the duo started to sob uncontrollably while the male of the duo placed a comforting hand on the female's shoulders, his own eyes knitted shut in an attempt to control his own tears while quietly cursing his incompetence and uselessness to help the situation.

At that moment, the artificial life form felt a strange sensation blossoming within him. It was anger. Anger directed towards both the clipboard wielding human and the heartbroken couple for giving up hope so quickly. The anger turned towards unbridled hatred rather quickly, which further evolved into homicidal intents once the hospital decided that any further medical treatments would just be a waste of resources for a pointless cause.

Eventually, he, too, accepted reality. The girl was dying, the emerald eyes that she wielded struggled to even keep themselves open.

He really didn't want to see those beautiful eyes go.

* * *

 

The creature brought himself in the green-eyed girl's hospital room again later that night, during her slumbering hours. He had decided to make the dying girl his vessel.

It was just a mere theory, a gamble that he made based on the hope that the girl would have a chance of recovery if he were to supplement her waning life force with his own. Floating his hands above the unconscious form of the sickly girl, and activated the "leeching" ability his clansmen programmed within his body.

In a heartbeat, he was gone.

* * *

 

The next morning, when the girl with pretty eyes was discharged from the hospital to the sight of a cheering mass of friends and members of kin, the creature knew his gamble had paid off.

Taking over her brain was something that he decided to save for another day. He had performed a miracle, meaning it was only fair if he rested for a bit. Nine decades sounded like a reasonable amount of time before he could get himself motivated again.

What his comrades would think of him really didn't matter at the moment. In retrospect, he never did care about their desires and ambitions.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a student-established pecking order within the Konohagakure Ninja Academy.

To move up in the social totem pole, one must possess the following: a fashionable choice of clothing, a sociable personality, decent academical and practical performances, and most importantly, the person in question must not go by the name of Uzumaki Naruto.

Of course being financially wealthy and hailing from a prestigious family or clan were also helpful when climbing the rungs of the social ladder, which was why even individuals like Saaya, who possessed below average scores in all fields of study and an equally terrible personality still got treated like royalties.

Though Sakura knew that she, herself, didn't have much right to complain. Just like how Saaya wouldn't be held in such high regards without her parents wealth, Sakura knew that she probably wouldn't have found any companionship without the assistance of Ino. After all, she was neither from a prestigious family nor any sociable before Ino came along and dragged her out of her comfort zone. In a sense, she used gold to reach her current status as well—gold that took form in her and Ino's friendship.

The pink-haired girl quickly slapped the cliched thought out of her head and returned her attention to what she was doing before she was carried away by her idle musing. If Ino heard what she was thinking, she would no doubt be mercilessly teased.

"I didn't know I was that important to you," and "You better not develop feelings for me because I believe we both know that I'm only into guys," were probably the among the things that her best friend would say to her if her best friend was sitting next to her right now and had the ability to read minds.

It was only at that moment that she was glad that her fair-haired classmate wasn't able to attend school today. After all, she heard that the Yamanaka Clan had an affinity to mind-related techniques.

However, any relief that she felt towards Ino's absence quickly turned into a strong longing for her friend's presence when she heard a shrill voice call for her name. The girl cringed, it was Saaya and her sisterhood of sycophant halfwits again.

"W-what do you want, Saaya?" She asked, looking up from the arithmetic worksheet that she was occupying herself with to face the quartet of girls towering over her seated form. The pink haired girl tried to keep her eyes cold and her tone firm, but she had a feeling that the quiver in her voice just exposed to Saaya and her goons what she truly was—a weak, dependent individual that would be without Ino's guidance.

The sinister glint in Saaya's green eyes all but confirmed her suspicion.

"Sakura-chan, I heard you don't have many friends other than Ino-chan." The green-eyed rich girl asked, making a show of looking around the vacant seats that surrounded Sakura to validate her statement.

Sakura knew that it had already begun. Her vulnerability was exposed and now Saaya was going to drill into it until she breaks, not by the crimson ringlets sprouting from her tormentor's head, but by a series of well-constructed sentences.

"It seems like Ino's friends don't like to hang around you that much when Ino is not around."

What Saaya said was true. Deep down inside, Sakura knew that she was never "popular", no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise. People just hung around her when Ino was around because they liked Ino, and Ino only.

Still, the Haruno female tried to ignore the green-eyed monster looming over her seat, instead choosing to distract herself from Saaya's intrusive presence.

"You know, it's heartbreaking for me to see someone like you suffer in loneliness. If you don't mind, we would like to let bygones be bygones and allow you to join my sisterhood."

Sakura's previous resolve of ignoring Saaya went to hell instantly. The girl had been dying to free herself from Saaya's torments, and this could very well be her only chance to do it. Even though she never thought of the rich girl as anything short of untrustworthy, she was getting extremely desperate. She just couldn't endure someone taking all of her insecurities and use them to torture her anymore. Not when it's on a daily basis, and especially not when Ino was not around.

Saaya smirked, she knew she had Sakura's attention. Thrusting a hand into the pockets of her fifty-thousand ryo leather jacket, she produced an elaborately decorated pocketbook—one with the symbol of her family, a silver pentagram, painted across the cover. "Just sign your name in here and we will get you your own membership card within a week."

The pink-haired girl stared at the blank page of the pocketbook presented to her, her pen-holding hand trembled as her mind warred about whether or not to accept the "truce" that Saaya had proposed.

She gave in to her urges to protect herself from further bullying eventually. With a shaky hand, she went and seized the pocketbook from Saaya's grasp, and once she did, she pressed the tip of her pen against the lined page of the pocketbook.

The first stroke of the first character of her name wasn't even completed before Saaya cut her off.

"However, there is one condition."

Sakura looked up from the pocketbook to the sight of a grinning Saaya. "There is something we want you to do to Uzumaki Naruto."

Taking her classmate's silence as agreement, the redhead proceed to whisper her request into the Haruno's ears.

At that moment, Sakura thought that it was the devil that was talking to her.

* * *

 

Uzumaki Naruto, the dead-last at the Konohagakure Ninja Academy, the village troublemaker, and also the one forever cursed to be on the lowest level of the student-made hierarchy.

One could spread chip grease all over the academy-owned textbooks, bring a dog that had yet to be potty trained, or even unleash a jar of potentially virulent insects, and they would still be held in a higher regard than the clumsy graffiti artist by most of the people in the academy, both staff and students alike.

Sakura had witnessed the blonde boy subjected to the "hallway treatment"—a form of punishment where the punished had to stand in the hallway in a perfectly still manner while holding buckets of water in each of their hands—even when the punishment was not truly deserved or should not be solely subjected to him only. It was as if the boy was the surrogate for the rage of many in the village though no physical harm was done to the boy, at least not to her knowledge.

What brought forth such hatred was something Sakura didn't understand, but judging from the general attitude the villagers displayed towards him, Sakura assumed that whatever he did, the sub-par treatment that was given to him was warranted. Surely it would be impossible for the majority of the village to wrongfully hate on one specific individual.

Sending a glance towards the goggle-donning blonde boy sitting on the other side of the classroom, Sakura watched as the boy brandished the action figure of the fourth Hokage around, as he attempted to recruit people to join his game.

"So, I saw you guys playing with the action figures of the first and second Hokage yesterday. Well, I brought my action figure of the fourth Hokage with me today, so let's have a Hokage battle royale!"

"No thanks. We are done with action figures. Those things are for kids."

Sakura's lips thinned into a frown at the sound of the boys' blatant lie. She saw them play with action figures just earlier this morning, which was why she didn't believe them when they said that they moved on from action figures already.

"You know, I noticed that you guys were all wearing the matching shirts last Monday. Well, I realized that I happen to own the same shirt as well. Maybe we could all just pick a day and stroll down the streets while wearing identical clothing. How cool would that be?"

"Yeah...we already moved on from that style of clothing. Maybe next time."

Once again the boy was rejected, and presented with no other option but to slump down in his seat and admit defeat to the social ostracism his peers imposed upon him.

Suddenly Sakura grew very conscious of the bottle that she held in her hands. She didn't feel comfortable doing what Saaya wanted her to do to the blonde boy anymore. At first she suppressed her conscience by convincing herself that the boy was a vulgar being that deserved everything that happened to him, but the scene that she just witnessed made him look so...humane.

The girl tightened her grip on the bottle Saaya had entrusted to her, applying unnecessary force against the glass casing. She hoped that the glass container would just miraculously crumble away under the pressure of her hand. That way the creatures that the container housed would be free to crawl away, and she could pass off her failure to meet Saaya's request as an unfortunate accident.

There was no way she could put worms in the boy's food now.

Turning her head around, Sakura made eye contact with Saaya, who gave her a nod, as if to urge her on. From how closely Saaya is surveilling her, the young Haruno girl knew that purposely smashing against the classroom wall was also not an option.

Slowly, she walked towards the oblivious blonde. The sound of the classroom door sliding open stopped her in her tracks, though.

"Alright class, recess is over. Now it's time for basic combat training. I want you guys to line up in a single-filed line and follow me outside. Remember, no talking in the hallways as I don't want to receive complaints from other teachers for disturbing their class."

Masking her inner relief with a look of disappointment, Sakura made her way towards the gathering group of students, not before mouthing an "It can't be helped" towards an irritated Saaya, who seemed to be quite disappointed by her performance.

Haruno Sakura had never been so glad to see Iruka-sensei.

* * *

 

"T-this i-is not over yet, you e-emo bastard." The boy articulated through heavy breaths.

His opponent, however, was neither interested in the fatigued boy nor upset at the name that the boy had just labeled him with. Instead he reversed the position of his body, and walked in the opposite direction of his aggressive teammate, aiming to be assimilated by the crowd of students standing by the sideline.

The victor and loser of the bout were pretty clear. Uchiha Sasuke had defeated Uzumaki Naruto in what Sakura could only describe as a one-sided contest.

After there was a reason why the male Uchiha was the envy of boys and the apple of many girls' eyes. The sole survivor of the Uchiha massacre was just simply that good.

"That's enough Naruto. There is no need to call your classmates names just because you are bitter about your defeat. Instead, you should channel your bitterness into something more productive, like practicing your taijutsu skills."

Naruto, however, didn't feel the need to regard Iruka's words. Instead, he wiped away the dirt smeared across his face with the sleeves of his shirt and smirked, his confidence and self-esteem unswayed by his previous defeat. "Iruka-sensei, I think this is a good time for me to unveil my true identity."

Umino Iruka raised an eyebrow out of pure confusion. "And what would that be?"

Without so much as a warning, Naruto charged towards the withdrawing Uchiha, his arms raised and his fists clenched, readied to launch a sneak attack against the seemingly unsuspecting Uchiha, all the while spewing out the "secret identity" that he had apparently been keeping from everyone. "That I'm a secret genius that operated under the mask of a foolish child!"

He was lying.

The ease the Uchiha had in thwarting his attempt at a sneak attack and the quickness to which the boy was subdued after that proved it.

* * *

 

There was another brief period of recess after the conclusion of Iruka-sensei's taijutsu training. The teacher had once again left his students to their own devices and removed his presence from the classroom, though not before encouraging them to use this time to reflect on what they did well or didn't do well in the hand-to-hand combat session that they all participated in just moments ago.

However, not everyone took Umino Iruka's advice to heart. Saaya and her posse, in particular, took advantage of this opportunity to once again motivate to take part in the practical joke that they wanted to pull on the blonde Uzumaki child.

"Come on, Sakura. Only you can do it. Have you seen the way that he looks at you during class? I bet you're the only one that he trusts."

"Sakura, think about it. He must be a real scoundrel for people to dislike him so much. Just think of putting worms in his food as a form of retribution for whatever he did in the past."

"Sakura, now is your only chance. Approach him while he is still eating ramen and put the worms in his food."

The words of Saaya's friends guided Sakura as she approached the table that the battered and bruised blonde child was moping at.

She thought she could do it. The boy's ramen cup was just a short distance away from her.

All she had to do was to distract the blonde boy with a conversation and then seek an opening to drop the worms in the glass bottle into the ramen cup.

However, when she saw the way that the boy's eyes lit up when he noticed that she was standing right next to him, she realized that she couldn't do it after all.

It was not usual that someone would be so excited to see her.

The girl stuffed the bottle of worms in her pocket as she took a seat next to her ramen-loving classmate, who seemed to still be in disbelief that she was actually sitting right beside him.

She reached out a hand for him to shake. "Hello, my name is Haruno Sakura. I don't believe we have formally introduced ourselves to each other before."

A grin fertilized on the boy's face at the sight of the girl's gesture, and he took her hand in his almost too eagerly. "Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto, secret prodigy."

She resisted the peer pressure. Even if it was only temporarily.


End file.
